Most of you readers know that I love to visit ghost towns…especially those in the old west. Well, here’s the story of two lesser-known towns, but both are filled with interesting history.
Most of you readers know that I love to visit ghost towns…especially those in the old west. Well, here’s the story of two lesser-known towns, but both are filled with interesting history.
There was once a small mining town in New Mexico named Quartzburg. It had more than its fair share of thugs, thieves, robbers, card sharks, medicine men, prostitutes, gunslingers, and traveling sideshows. At one point, the good citizens got together and said: “That’s enough!” Collectively they ran all the above kind of people out of town.
Most of these “cast-outs” went to another small mining town called Homitos.
Back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, the town had a population of about 1,000 people. In 1917, there were 34 saloons in town plus a blacksmith shop, a livery stable, an auction barn, a post office, a hotel, a barbershop, a church, several dance halls, an opera house, a newspaper, a sheriff’s office, a school, a library, and other businesses. At the end of Main Street there was a Chinese town where the people were all hooked on opium.
This was also a town where legendary outlaw Joaquin Murieta frequented. He once escaped the law by scurrying through a tunnel used to move beer barrels from a storehouse to a dance hall. He was one of the “MOST WANTED” criminals in that part of the State. Writer Bret Harte described Hornitos as a town “where everything that loathes the law found congenial soil and flourished.” Nevertheless, solid citizens battled for control of their community forming vigilante groups to fight against outlawry.
There was one saloon owned and operated by Mrs. Merck. At her saloon some semblance of order could be found. She was from France and was known as the “grand dame of Hornitos”.
In 1911, a small stone block jail was erected in the center of town. After a Chinese man was jailed for shooting an Anglo, he was lured to a window near the ceiling of the jail with an offer of food. Suddenly he was seized, then promptly strangled to death by a rope lowered through the bars.
The only symbol of spirituality in town was the St. Catherine’s Catholic Church. It still stands today in much the same condition that it was back in the town’s lawless days, (see photo)
Today, Hornitos is only a shadow of its former days.
(Narrative and photo provided by Jena native Gale Trussell)
